The Shape of Grief
For months, I have been trying to feel the shape of my grief. The experience of losing my Aunt Terry reminded me a lot of losing my father. And not just because I thought of her as my mother. In both instances, there was the phone call I...
When You’ve Gotta Go
The nightmares always begin as dreams: I am out at a party, I am out grocery shopping, I am wandering around a familiar-seeming large house, I am at the Bally’s gym in Mesa, AZ I used to go to with my parents in the 1990s. Pedestrian nighttime musings...
Let It Snow
We are waiting for it to snow today. Weather forecasts raised the alarm nearly a week ago that we should be expecting five to eight inches of snow. Five to eight inches is not an impossible amount for Columbus: the winters routinely include several inches of the fluffy white...
Reflections
At the end of every June, the firm I work for has a conference. Everyone from the firm is invited to get together in one place. The timing of the conference coincides with annual promotion season and a large part of the conference is dedicated to announcing and celebrating...
Know Hanukkah, No Christmas?
My first memory of Hanukkah was when I was seven years old and my father was invited to come and teach the kids in my third grade elementary school class about Hanukkah. I have no clue whose idea this was. My parents were not ones to be involved in...
A Memorial, An Anniversary, A Birthday, and a Wedding Part III: Be Not Afraid
As I turned our car down a pebbled road in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, I knew we had made it to the right wedding when I saw a white horse pulling a carriage with the wedded couple to be up the path in front of us. Shanna, the bride and a...
A Memorial, An Anniversary, A Birthday, and a Wedding Part II: Beer on the Tracks
“I figured out what I am getting Basil for an anniversary gift!” I was talking to Aunt Terry on car speakerphone as I drove through farmland somewhere in Ohio, on my way to Columbus after a week onsite at a client for work. It was early September: I scanned...
A Memorial, An Anniversary, A Birthday, and a Wedding Part I: The Funeral Director
“So what type of service did you have in mind?” It was 4 pm on the first Friday in October. I was sitting at small table in Cheektowaga, NY, being questioned by Ed, a funeral director. He was a tall, thin, bespectacled man in his late 60s. Basil was...
For Aunt Terry
The following is the eulogy I delivered at our beloved Aunt Terry’s memorial on October 20, 2018. One of my first memories of Aunt Terry is when she invited me to attend a period of the elementary math class she taught. I was seven years old. My parents, my...
One More Time, With No Feeling
This past Tuesday, traffic at a country highway intersection in Northwest Indiana had been stopped by two county police officers: there had recently been an accident at the intersection and emergency vehicles needed to cross the highway to get the unfortunate individuals to the hospital. I sat stopped in...